Graduating in June with a BA in Computer Forensics and Network Security. I have a FT job that has gotten me by for the last 3.5 yrs and do tech support.

Anyways I work with a total of 5 people and two of them are computer nerds. You know the type, talk about the fastest processors or new video cards, new laptop out with 3D capability.

Anyways one of them today came and spoke to me about a "virus" he and his friend made a few yrs ago. It's funny when I talk about network Security stuff in detail he has the "deer in the headlights look". Anyways he says that he made a virus that when the computer boots the virus literally shuts the power supply off.

I just nod my head and say "ah that's cool dude" because I don't believe him that he has the know how to make a virus except maybe an STD...LOL.

Anyways my question is: Can you make a virus that would do this, shutting the P/S off when the computer boots.

My first assumption is it's possible I suppose. But I doubt this guy and his track record of making complete BS stories up is pretty high, usually we just laugh at his numerous weird stories.

I personally don't think this is possible. There's a fine line involving viruses, being software coded to infect software (OSes, etc), and hardware like video cards, processors n such. As far as a virus goes, the hard drive itself that has it has the virus on it. Never have I seen a virus that has some magical power of affecting physical components of a machine.

I've heard of a viruses that causes machines to freeze up (how many of them do this anyway), and could heat the machine up a little bit but nothing as oppose to doing any physical damage.

If he's giving you the, "deer in the headlights look" when your talking about network security I think that's all the proof you need to see that the guys pulling your leg. Real virus developers understand operating systems and security to the core, and they also don't go around bragging about the malware they've written.

Last edited by KrisTeason on Sat Mar 05, 2011 12:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sasser worm shut down machines every single time. Anyhow, it is possible and it is rather simple http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Fake-and-Harmless-Virus Almost 11 years ago, I interviewed a "virus" group that created what they called: 'non malicious' payloads as a mechanism to see how they spread, disaffect operating systems, etc., back then, I remember thinking how annoyingly stupid they were as I still think it is now. This was their interview ... http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200008 ... dowvx.html For the most part, there is nothing "nice" or "leet" about creating viruses and it is not at all difficult including security concepts such as bypassing AV, fw, IDS/IPS. But that's another story...

Long story short its doable and its easily doable. On MS based operating systems and *nix based machines.

Sil I think your quoting me out of context when I said I don't think it's possible. I was trying to throw out the idea of a virus that can shutdown a power supply. I've never seen viruses do physical damage to a machine - but I'm open to the exact answer if anyone cares to prove me wrong or second my educated guess.

Anibal L. Sacco and Alfredo A. Ortego of Core Security Technologies released a presentation detailing the exploit of this “persistent BIOS infection.” Through the use of a 100-line piece of code written in Python, a rootkit could be flashed into the BIOS and be run completely independent of the operating system.

In September 1998, Yamaha shipped a firmware update to their CD-R400 Drive's that was infected with the virus. In October 1998, a demo version of the Activision game SiN was infected by one of its mirror sites.[1] In March 1999, several thousand IBM Aptivas shipped with the CIH virus,[2] just one month before the virus would trigger.

CIH's dual payload was delivered for the first time on April 26, 1999, with most of the damage occurring in Asia. CIH filled the first 1024 KB of the host's boot drive with zeros and then attacked certain types of BIOS. Both of these payloads served to render the host computer inoperable, and for laymen the virus essentially destroyed the PC. Technically, however, it was possible to replace the BIOS chip, and methods for recovering hard disk data emerged later.

"Win95/CIH will make a machine completely, fundamentally, dead," said Nick FitzGerald, editor of U.K.-based Virus Bulletin magazine. "You turn the power on, and you hear the hard drive and fans spin up, but nothing else happens."

You can't literally shut of a P/S no but you can shut off a computer and its pretty easy on windows or *nix based distros. Also you can write malware so that it does destroy a HDD you can destory sectors or just format the whole thing.